Giveaway - Letterpress Now, A DIY Guide to New & Old Printing Methods

I have to say I haven't been more excited about a book in a while than this one! Letterpress Now, a DIY Guide to New & Old Printing Methods by Jessica C. White is really something special if you're in the same thought process as I, totally in love with the letterpress, but were maybe a little confused as where to start. I absolutely LOVE this book as it basically explains everything you wanted to know or maybe even didn't know you wanted to know about letterpress, from deciding on what type would be good for what you need, purchasing one, all the equipment (safety and otherwise) needed to run one and then a heap of awesome projects to make or be inspired by. I have had a few letterpress lessons in my day, but really, to have a book to guide you - and not only guide you but then show several different projects and how to make them from letterpress pros such as Hatch Show Prints, Blackbird Letterpress and more is such a treasure. Jessica White, co-founder of Ladies of Letterpress knows her stuff and does an awesome job laying it all out sharing all the information you need to get started in the letterpress world, whether it's a hobby or perhaps a more serious business venture.

The book is available through Amazon here and is published by Lark Crafts who also sell it at their site here.

And hooray! We have an extra copy to give away here this week! If you're interested in the giveaway, please leave a comment here at this post why you think you deserve to a copy - and we'll pick a winner by Friday, January 11th! Tweet it and come back here to leave a second entry - with the link to your tweet. Deadline to enter is Thursday evening 9pm Pacific time on January 10/13. No Anonymous or Unknown commenters will be eligible unless you leave a valid email. Best of luck to everyone!

It would add to my graphic design studies and emphasise my skills on typesetting. It would also help me to better understand the printing process, therefore be able to better create designs for print! And I deserve one because.... I'm awesome!?

Wow, what a great giveaway. Any inspiring book is worth having as they always set your ideas in motion and juices flowing. I'd love to win this one as I'd finally understand how to go about these things..... I only see the end results everywhere but have no idea how they are done.

I am a graphic designer and have recently started teaching Printmaking at my cities university. I found an old C&P (hidden by dust mostly) and am TRYING to restore it for the kids before the end of the term. They are chomping at the bit to get their fingers on it and I am googling 'how to adjust platen bolts'. This book is just what we need!

This would be a great addition to my bookshelf because I am a student studying graphic design and the fine arts, and I've often contemplated going into printmaking. I even did my high school graduation announcements in letterpress on a home built press and a polymer plate.

Yes,what a giveaway! I'm going to take part in old-fashioned letterpressing course in the end of Jan. and I have no idea how it's done so this would be a good chance to read and learn before I attend the course. Then I could learn much more in that course.Sorry I don't tweet - yet...

We specialize in flat printing currently, but my husband is a typophile and we are both obsessed with all things old press lettering. I would love to win this book to give to him. Letterpress is something he would love to do. He has already done research but this will give him even more info to get started and find his press!

I am a first year graphic student and I am a total newby in the graphic world but I love the vintage and old aspects off designing! I would love to learn about letterpress because. Thats the only things I can say :)

You cannot beat the glorious action of the press and the texture of a great cotton paper filled with vintage typeset images! All your senses are in play with letterpress! I should be most appreciative to be the recipient of such a wonderful book!

As a professional designer I spend so much time in the digital realm, everything mediated by the screen and the keyboard. I love to get my hands dirty and work with real objects...how wonderful to work with both the tactile and the symbolic, in type...

I have had a small letterpress sitting in my basement that my father gave to me after rescuing it from a museum that didn't want it. I cleaned it up, and would love to use it, but have been at a loss about how to go about that for over two years, so there it sits. This book would help me give that press a new life!

I'm in love with all things to do with type, printing and stamping, so I'd love to win the book. I work in a newspaper and have heard stories about the days when we used type and typesetters. Would love to relive those old days!

I am a graphic designer who is trying to start her own stationary line. I am currently working during all hours beyond my 9-5 job and I am hoping to expand to offering letterpress solutions. This book would be a great tool to help propel my side business forward.

Please strongly consider choosing me. Thank you for the chance at such a great give-a-way.

I'm a graphic designer and become a lover of letterpress when I was introduced to it in college.

I recently moved to Wisconsin where I discovered the Hamilton Wood Type Museum, an incredible museum with the world's largest collection of wood type and letterpress machinery. Unfortunately, the museum has recently been told they have to vacate their current property and need donations in order to fund the move and maintain the collection.

A book like this would be great to have in order to teach friends about the art of letterpress and why it's so important to support a gem like the Hamilton.

For more information on the Hamilton Wood Type Museum or to give a donation visit:http://woodtype.org/

Thanks!

PS. I'm not affiliated with the Hamilton, I'm just a huge fan of the museum they run and they're mission to preserve the art of letterpress.

i just LOVE the printed word. even more so when it takes on a tactile quality or added dimension like for example.. 3d signage lettering. especially when a lot of love went into the making of it!

ok here is..MY LONG STORY.

this giveaway is just so timely! just last weekend i came back from a trip to the UNESCO heritage sited town of historic Melaka (in my home country of Malaysia) upon learning of this little known printing press shop that is on a quest to revive & reinvent itself after 4 generations of existence. i never knew!

--flashback to 2 years ago. i was visiting Melbourne & chanced upon the Melbourne Museum of Printing. i was so keen to see what i could learn from there but alas, they were in the midst of relocating. imagine. relocating this HUGE collection of old print press equipment. i decided to volunteer with the move. to the outer suburbs of Footscray. & learnt what i could along the way from the warm affable owner/founder of the place.. Michael.

i helped move for about 2 weeks. no small feat i must say. forklifts were involved. many dusty pigeon pooped warehouse-type storage places too. along the way.. i learnt to use the pallet jack! but then it was time to head home to Malaysia. & the move was barely half completed. & so i didn't get to fully learn the ropes from michael the art of the press. i was sad.. but i vowed to go back & pay Michael a visit again.

MMOP website here:http://mmop.org.au/--

fast forward to present time in Melaka. i naturally jumped at the chance to tag along when my photographer friend was doing a shoot of the lil printshop place! suffice to say i was starry-eyed & head-over-heels in love with the place. i made a new friend in Soon Wei. the great grandson of the original printer who brought the printed word to Melaka. he now helms the business & has bright & beautiful plans for his lil print press shops future! i predict i be paying his shop lotsa visits!

The Royal Press as reviewed thru the eyes of Melissa Rachel Black here:http://melissarachelblack.com/royalpress/

my interest has been jumpstarted & ignited again by the the Royal Press. winning this book will mean i get to keep all my cogs well greased & running. creative juices flowing. etsyshop on the brink of opening. then pay Michael a visit again & share the news! he be so ecstatic too. i would love to help keep this art & heritage alive in Malaysia in amy little way that i could.

thankyou for the chance! and if u made it this far in my post.. thanks for reading too :D

I own a small stationery shop and absolutely love letterpress! Recently I've been given the chance to "borrow" a letterpress that is just in storage to decide if I want to buy it or not. I have no idea where to begin so this book would be awesome!

I took a letterpress 101 workshop where I printed using letterpress wooden blocks on a huge 1890's letterpress machine. I would love to win this book to learn more about new and old methods of printing. It is very interesting and exciting!

My husband and I are self-taught letterpress printers, and we'd love to have such a well designed guide on how the whole process works. We recently purchased a tabletop cylinder proof press with the hope of printing posters, but haven't been able to get useable results yet.

I have always liked letterpress cards/etc and never really thought it was something I could do. But I think this is an art form I could really get into if I had the right tools. I would love to win this book and teach myself!

I would love this book and use it till the spine falls apart. My girlfriend and I are purchasing our first letterpress and I can't imagine anything more perfect to help us get started. What a wonderful giveaway.

I would LOVE this book! I've always been interested in the process but really scared to jump in because there's so much I don't know. This would be so helpful! I also just found out yesterday that I'm starting an internship at Hatch Print next month and reading through this book beforehand might make me feel like less of a putz on my first day : )

I'm a graphic designer who is really interested in the letterpress & I'm wanting to move my business to the more handmade. My husband surprised me for Christmas this year with a small press that he is redoing so I can practice. I just wish I knew what I was doing beforehand! Would really love to use this book... sound perfect.

I just bought a small table top press AND I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO US IT LOL. I've taken a few classes on a larger press years ago so this book would be a perfect refresher/how-to. I'll definitely buy it if I don't win it :)

This book looks really great.I'm teaching graphic design and my students are saying I'm only thinking about Typefaces. They say I even dream in Typefaces!Maybe this will let them understand WHY typefaces are so important & beautiful!

i so love everything about letterpress. the tradition... the look... the feel...and just knowing that a craft person's hands were engaged..i really will love to read the booki really will love to use iti really will appreciate iti really will send you a handmade letterpress printed thank you card

I'm a college student who is just getting into letterpressing. One of my friends took the class I'm enrolled in this semester last year and he made the most awesome, detailed, heart warming gifts for his family and close friends. Being with him as he made these gifts made realize the power a handcrafted letterpressed creation can have on a person. I run an art blog that focuses on peoples' perceptions of art and over the holidays so many awesome people gave me there time to sit, chat, and help me out with my project. I want to to start making gifts of thank you for helping me out so much.

Hi- what a great giveaway! My love of letterpress comes from my love of stationery & correspondence. I have a small etsy store and sell greeting cards.

My sister gave me a present of a letterpress course in Kingston ON in 2011. We both got hooked. In April 2012 I took a plunge and got a tabletop letterpress. I am at the beginner stage but I am excited for the potential.

Having a current how-to'book would be a great reference.

And letterpress has a special family connection as great uncles and my grandfather used to be in the newspaper business where letterpress was the only method of producing newspapers.

I'm a print designer with a giggly nerdy love for beautiful print (and beautiful books). Owning this book, and fawning all over its pages would make me deliriously happy (yep, my nerdy love is that extreme).

I grew up eagerly helping my dad in his basement print shop on weekends. I loved the smell of printers ink, loved to put the lead type back into the case using a cheat sheet as a guide to help me find the proper home of each letter, loved pulling the handle on the pilot press to make book marks and when I got older, actually learning how to feed paper into the C&P 10X15 as it ran. So many great memories that I now have a C&P 8X12 of my own. I don't live close to my dad unfortunately, and usually have to call and ask for advice over the phone. I still have so much to learn, and this book looks like the perfect tool for me! Would love to win a copy! Thanks for the opportunity!

This would be perfect reference for my stationery line that I am about to produce. I am contacting letterpress printers as I write and the most information that I can gather would be ideal. If I don't win, I'll buy the book

I'd love to win this book because I just discovered LetterMpress for the iPad and it has rekindled a love for letterpress. I'd love to really know HOW to use the furniture, the art, and the press itself.Vickievasaart@yahoo.com

Ever since my sister's boyfriend said he had a press in his barn, I've been trying to find a way to hint that I'd love to get my hands on it. If I had this book, I could a) learn some lingo and work it into conversation or b) leave it on the table the next time I'm visiting. And, just today, while watching a video about the development of communication systems in the world, I thought it wold be fun to do some sort of printing project with my students, so printing/letterpress has been on my mind!

A DIY book is exactly what I need at this moment in my creative life as I and friend are in the process of working on our first collection for an Esty store and/or craft show. Over a five year span in the '90s, we had success at having one-evening pop-up sales with friends, all of whom like us, have made beautiful things that we've hardly seen elsewhere.

For me, that meant making and selling printed things and paintings. Re: printed things i've made/sold:

1) Broadsides made during a letterpress course I took 15 years ago that had an image of a pen becoming a calligraphic flourish from an image I originally did with a calligraphy nib and with a poem I wrote to my muse

2) Card sets and gift tags I made with a Gocco screen printed - images were all my own drawings and painted sketches - very tiny and brightly inked (chick, dog warily sniffing flower, wire hen basket filled with eggs)

A long time has passed since I've done any printing and I'm excited to start again, BUT - since my Gocco mini-press is now broken and discontinued, I've been exploring doing both letterpress printing at home or at a nearby studio. Home is preferable for a variety of reasons, namely convenience, but also that i would need a serious refresher course on operating a press and setting type. Also, while I know of polymer plates, I've never made one or had one made, but I'm slowly getting an idea of who to go to and why...

This is why a book like Letterpress Now would be great to have as I am on the precipice of deciding whether to buy one of the newer desktop presses being sold to crafting folks or to just return to a studio that owns the big mothers....and also I just continue to love all things printed "by hand".

Thanks for considering and having the contest!

Take care,

Vivian Choy Edelson(whose imprint so many years ago was "Time to Eat Press")

lovely, lovely, lovely. I am a searching for outlets for my creative youngish old soul and would love to explore all the ins and outs of letterpress. I cannot wait to share it with my friends and blog about the lovely new ways my creativity is unfolding.xxoo

I'd LOVE to win this! A friend who makes bridal stationary actually has an old press. We live in different countries, but she's promised to show me how it works one day. I'd love to read this and actually understand how it works so I can partake in the pressing fun the next time I see her.